Meta

UPDATE: THIS SEEMS TO BE MY WEEK FOR RADIO. I’M GOING TO BE ON WITH SUZI WEISSMAN ON KPFK’S BENEATH THE SURFACE, TODAY, FRIDAY, between 5pm and 6pm. (I’ll be doing a ten minute news segment at some point during the hour.) We’ll be discussing the Christopher Dorner story and much else.

You can listen live at 90.7 FM or online here.Here’s the podcast. You can find me in the first 13 minutes or so.

THE SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT AND THE MATTER OF DEPUTY GANGS

I was on Warren Olney’s Which Way LA? on Thursday night talking about whether the LA Sheriff’s Department’s recently announced plans to fire 7 members of the LASD’s Jump Out Boys clique was an action that was more symbol than substance—designed to refurbish the department’s scandal-wracked reputation.

LASD spokesman, Steve Whitmore, was also on the show, as was LA Times reporter, Robert Faturechi. Whitmore said that the Jump Out Boys firing was simply the first in a process of “cleaning house.”

Yet, given the department’s largely unadressed history of deputy cliques—which, in too many cases, seem to project an us-versus-them, we’re the “alpha dogs, do what you got to do ethos of policing—it is difficult not to be skeptical about all this purported sweeping up.

When on the show, I listed a few of the corners of the LASD “house” that could use some cleaning, when it comes to deputy gangs.

For instance I mentioned this account of problematic deputy gangs inside Men’s Central Jail, as told by retired LASD Commander Bob Olmsted during his testimony to the jails commission:

Following up on Busansky’s line of questioning, the Commission’s executive director, Miriam Krinsky, asked if Olmsted had ever heard the term, “earn your ink.”

Olmsted nodded, yes, he had.

“I was a commander at the time. When significant force was going up, I told Captain Cruz that I wanted to see every report where significant force occurred in Men’s Central Jail.

“There was one particular report that stood out in my mind. The inmate was interviewed, and he said, ‘I was up against the wall. I had my hands behind my back. Then one deputy said to the other deputy, “Are you ready to earn your ink?” And then, boom! All of a sudden they busted his orbital. “ (The orbital being the eye socket.)

“And I’m thinking, what the hell does ‘earn your ink” mean? Then I started asking a around. People said, ‘Oh, you don’t know? The 2000 Boys have a Roman Numeral II tattooed on the back of their calf. And that’s how you earn your ink, by busting somebody’s head.’”

At this last, the commission members, who had listened to all of Olmsted’s testimony with unusual intensity, lapsed into a thoughtful silence—except for Reverend Murray, who shook his head slightly.
“Mmmmm. Mmmmm. Mmmmmm.” Murray, murmured sadly, his expression of dismay not meant for the microphone, which picked it up anyway.

When I spoke to Olmsted on Thursday morning, and asked him if there had been any firings around these issues, he said to his knowledge, there had not.

And then there is the matter of the Regulators, as represented in an internal LASD document, circa 2004, that WLA acquired some time back. The memo indicates strong concern among command staff about the gangster-like behavior of the Regulators clique based at Century station. Among other concerns, it was reported that, as with the Jump Out Boys, if a Regulator was involved in “a fatal deputy involved shooting,” then smoke was added to the barrels of the revolvers featured in the clique’s signatory tattoo. (In the case of the Regulators, the clique tattoo reportedly depicted a trench-coated skeleton wearing a cowboy hat and holding not one, but two nice big guns.)

There were, of course, illustrations of the problem I didn’t have the time to mention.

For instance, there is the matter of Sergeant Timothy Cooper who allegedly pulled a gun on Sergeant Mark Moffett, pointed it at his head inside the Compton station in front of a witness and mouthed, “I’m going to kill you.” Serg. Cooper sports both a Viking tattoo and a Regulator tattoo. He received a 15 day suspension and, according to our sources, at least half of that suspension was “suspended.”

**And then there are the Vikings clique members who are scattered throughout the department in positions of responsibility, people like Lt. Greg Thompson, who last we heard was being investigated by the LASD for this incident inside Men’s Central Jails, and by the feds in this incident, was named multiple times for alleged misconduct as a Vikings clique member in this famous class action lawsuit. To my knowledge Thompson has not even been relieved of duty.

The list goes on after that.

When I spoke to Witmore after the broadcast, he reiterated the sheriff’s intention to do housecleaning.

“And look,” he said, “just these seven sends a chill through the department.”

John Loesing at The Acorn has looked into this side story about alleged misappropriation of booster club funds for personal use by former Los Hills/Malibu Station Captain Joseph Stephen. The accusation sprang up following the sexual coercion allegations against three former Sheriff’s Department higher ups, including Stephen, who has recently been relieved of duty. The Sheriff’s Department has reportedly opened an Internal Affairs investigation on the matter but Acorn spoke to Daniel Stern, a board member with the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Foundation, who said that the accusation involving “….possible sexual misconduct and misappropriation of Booster Club funds” relating to parties and prostitution while he attended the 2012 Baker to Vegas Relay, a law enforcement fundraising run” was completely unfounded.

The Press Enterprise has the story of the two Riverside officers shot early on Thursday, allegedly by Christopher Jordan Dorner.

(That’s our respected friend, Riverside Chief of Police Sergio Diaz, at the press conference about Dorner and the shooting in the video above.)

Christopher Jordan Dorner is, of course, the former LAPD officer who is suspected of shooting and killing Monica Quan, the daughter of longtime LAPD officer Randy Quan, and her fiance Keith Lawrence, in a ghastly and tragic act of revenge against the LAPD for what he believed was his unfair dismissal.

WLA grieves too for the Quan and Mitchell families.

It is our deep hope that Dorner can be quickly apprehended without anyone else getting hurt, and that this frightening chapter can come to an end.

The LA Times Joel Rubin, Jack Leonard and Kate Linthicum have an informative article on Dorner and his background here.

From time to time one will come across a certain type of comment posted to some reports concerning LASD.

The comment will present a comparison of LAPD and LASD.

The comment will brag about the effectiveness of an aggressive, proactive LASD stance vs. a weak hands-off LAPD approach when it comes to patrolling heavily gang impacted regions.

The commenter will claim superiority of LASD results coupled with a denigration of LAPD, but no evidence is ever offered to back up the conclusion.

What is the purpose for criticizing LAPD while congratulating LASD??

The comment is answering a question that hasn’t been asked.
And the strategy seeks to provide the answer before anyone poses the question.

Baca retains control by monopolizing control of information. Baca’s mouthpiece, Steve Whitmore, often takes advantage of this situation. Whitmore rebuts accusations by rightfully claiming the accuser has no proof.

Except Sheriff Baca cannot control the evidence which can be extracted from 30 years of publicly accessible data reported in the archives of local newspapers and tv stations.

A statistical researcher using census data and related historical data bases can structure a comparison where LAPD and LASD patrol adjoining south L.A. County jurisdictions. The study can create sample areas which are equivalent in density, income, ethnic percentages.

The study can take 30, 40, even 50 years of data for LAPD and LASD. add up the numbers, place them side to side. let’s see what they might teach us.

Deputies sporting skull tats and double revolvers which distinguish their clique is not a huge issue in and of itself.

getting the revolver’s gunpowder smoke tat is not the problem.

The problem comes because the deputy earns his smoke the same whether he stops a fugitive who just robbed a bank and took 3 hostages or whether he drops Jose de la Trinidad with 5 lead holes in the back.

Read the entire Manifesto unredacted and this guy is a LIBERAL LOON! This moron even blamed Palin for the Tucson shooting where the suspect Loughner was also a Liberal Loon! I write this because of the bias of reporting (not necessarily you,Celeste) I recall all the lying by all the media spots blaming innocent people of these atrocities!! Just the facts mam!! Joe Friday

Was there any mention of Mr. Tanaka’s Viking Tattoo? He’s only the Undersheriff and his reputation of taking care of his “inked-up boys,” is very well documented and known within LASD. Were the “Jump Out Boys,” taking their lead from him?

Based on the Jail Commission’s report, all roads pointed to Tanaka for the core problems at MCJ. Oh I forgot, Baca did his own investigation afterwards and determined Assistant Sheriff Cavanaugh was at fault. Baca blamed Marv for all of the Custody Division issues, forcing him to leave in disgrace, while Too Tall Paul lights up another stogie on the patio and tells himself how good life is, my bad. You should have seen Cavanaugh’s face when he stormed out of SHQ for the last time, it wasn’t pretty.

I personally have no issues with what happened to Marv. I found some of his decisions to lack integrity and just reinforce the current state of affairs within the Department. Some of his disgrace was well deserved. Just one reporters opinion.

Marv should have had the testicular fortitude to stand up and take a stand when he got pushed around. His authority was undermined, etc. and he became nothing but a figurehead. He stayed loyal to Baca. In return for his loyalty, he gets to take the fall for the bullshit.
There’s your reward Marv. Your last couple years you got neutered, then you got to take the fall.
While you’re having your second thoughts, look in the mirror and ask yourself if it was worth it to stick around your last couple of years.

Does WLA grieve for Maggie Carranza, 47, and her mother, 71-year-old Emma Hernandez, who were delivering the LATimes around 5:15 a.m. in Torrance when LAPD officers opened fire on their vehicle without any warning?

Bandwagon, I feel exactly the same as you, without exception. However, he was made a scapegoat by Leroy for something he had absolutely no control over, while the little man was standing behind Baca’s back sticking his tongue out at Marv. Under any other circumstance, I would have whispered to Marv as he stormed out the door, “Now you know how it feels.” What irks me is not long after the Commission’s report was made public, Leroy stated in a radio interview, “I have been doing my own investigation and the person who the Jail Commission has placed at fault, is not at fault. Someone else created this problem.” Well, we all learned later who the “someone else” was determined by Leroy to be. So once again, the Sheriff displays his terminal denial of who actually has been creating a majority of his nightmares, yet he refuses to acknowledge any of it, even when the finger is correctly pointed at the right person by the Jail Commission. And now we have tattooed deputies in a clique creating their own problem and Whitmore states, “The Sheriff is cleaning house.” Really?

Frankly CLF, I’m relieved that we don’t need to grieve for Ms. Hernandez and her daughter, because it seems as if she’s going to be okay. (Her daughter wasn’t badly injured.) Mostly, based on what I’ve heard thus far, I’m appalled that the officers opened up on the women’s car. We understand they’ were scared. But they’re trained police officers and they should not have fired on anyone, Dorner included, without a warming or a precipitating action. There was no excuse.

All that said, this is a very tense, fluid, nightmarish situation in which a trained, very disturbed ex-military man is hunting police officers—and has shown a willingness to kill civilians, and ambush officers who had no relationship to his stated grievance. I would hate to be in the position of the law enforcement folks having to deal with this terrible drama we see playing out. I merely pray for their safety, and for the safety of those around them.

I completely understand your thoughts. However, I think the real issue is that most, if not all the upper level Executives, lack the morale courage to do the right thing, even at the cost of their careers. So when they are thrown under the bus, that is their just rewards for remaining silent. There is an old saying that moral courage is often more difficult than physical courage. I think the current state of affairs within the Department validates that expression.

CLF and C: Two issues of concern. Many of us are deeply saddened and shocked at the way LAPD shot two innocent women, for delivering news papers. What will the DA do about this crime? Next, will the DA reopen all use of force cases involving this particular deputy gang clique?

If I was doing protection (and I have hundreds of times), and a blacked out vehicle rolled up on me, well, I wasn’t there, but personally, I probably would have engaged with the intent to surgically eliminate the threat.

As with military engagement, collaeral damage occurs. Doesn’t make it right, but it happens for the overall mission at hand. I’m sorry for what happened, but not sorry for the actions of the officers. The city will pay out big time (less the ambulance chasing attorney bill) and neither will have to deliver papers with their lights out again.

Witness LA – How many more repeat stories are we going to get from bored retired Sheriff’s and Sheriff’s who failed to promote? While you rehash these stories day after day we are witnessing the largest police abuse this community has ever seen. LAPD has been shooting 71 year old women without warning. Torrance PD shot up another pick up truck of an innocent person without warning. Read the full manifesto of Doner and do some real investigation. No one gets fired for accusing another officer unnecessary force. Read his allegations and investigate the corruption that is rampant. Much of it is easy to verify. Please give us some real research and lay off who is getting promoted on the Sheriff’s Department for a while. We get it. You don’t want Baca in office. Move on. You are missing the forest through the trees and the public suffers.

What you just wrote shocks my conscience. We are not the military. We are not in Iraq or Afghanistan, we are in the United States of America. Cover me doesn’t mean light them up. The rules of engagement are different. Please don’t embarass us. We are the police. God bless you.

Wait, The Public, if we investigate the LAPD for corruption, won’t people just like you vilify anyone who posts sentiments approving rooting out LAPD corruption by calling them bitter retired LAPD officers, and LAPD officers who failed to promote? Your intellectually faulty logic would then be turned against what you supposedly advocate.

It has been since the days of ARCO/NARCO AKA Operation Big Spender (two decades ago) that we have seen the LASD turn and face the corruption within it. That is a looong time to go without purging the dirty cops that accumulate if allowed. The time to do that at the LASD is now, and those who call for it will continue to do so, despite your efforts to slander them and demean their assertions by belittling who they are as cops.

What I hear when you post something like you did in # 16 is “stop pressing the LASD” and give LAPD a turn. While the Keystone cops behavior in the Dorner panic should be dealt with harshly, the LASD has rampant, pervasive, constant political, financial and institutional corruption, not just incompetence (it has that too).

Are you intentionally comparing the gaffs and costly screw ups of the Dorner related shootings to the political pay or play, deputy gangs, coverups of corruption, graft, and ongoing criminal enterprises created by, perpetuated by and protected by the highest executives in the LASD? If so, I recommend some entry level ethics, philosophy and sociology classes to learn the difference in severity and impact of the two shameful situations.

# 17, I agree with you. This isn’t combat. We as LA cops are not working roadblocks in Fallujah or Kandahar, where we can “light up” any vehicle that crosses our outer perimeter. We have to see who is in that vehicle first. That’s just basic law enforcement common sense. What a shameful shooting.

I dug a fox hole nearly everyday for thirteen months. I can state without equivocation, mental reservation or purpose of evasion that no one in my squad ever shot any civilian. Although, we were all so very young we were highly trained and knew the rules of engagement. Does my post have a recall of an OATH? It should! I never thought or imagined, even in a nightmare, that members of our community, we swore to protect would be referred to as; collateral damage. I fear that we have hit rock bottom!! Public: turn around before it´s too late! You sound just like Donner!

Your promotional bickering pales in comparison to what is currently going on at LAPD. Dorner has no reason to make any false allegations at this point. The Arco Big Spender/racisim/sexism federal court decree stuff on the Sheriff’s Department took place under Block.

I was not critical of posters. If you think you should be promoted, and want to call it corruption when you get passed over, write in to any blog you want. Who cares. I was critical of the WLA blog for missing the big story while carrying out an agenda. Just put a banner on the top of the page that says vote Baca out of office. It will always be there and you can move on to bigger topics for your readership. Fox 11 is doing a great job of tracking down and confirming much of what Dorner wrote in his manifesto. It is chilling.

Wake up. We have a 71 year old newspaper delivery woman with a bullet in her back. Her daughter also has a bullet in her from LAPD. This is not Iraq.

The difference between LAPD and LASO is training, discipline and education. You won’t see a Witness LA inside story on LAPD because no one from LAPD is going to be a mole for Witness LA. The website has no access. When a negative story is written it does not come from an LAPD insider, and no LAPD officers will come on this or any other website and bash each other. LASO is a soft target.

Most of us have read Mr. Dorner’s manifesto. He was not fired over one incident with his training officer. This is a guy that as the days go bye, more stories have come out about him. From beating up one of his high school teachers, initiating and escalating fights with other recruits while in the academy,and not following the instructions of academy staff. The only mistake L.A.P.D. made was not him discharging him earlier. However, he was discharged during probation. Yes, L.A.S.D. has also struggled with hiring decisions and not eliminating problems early. Henry Marin is a good example of this . A national television show documented Mr.Marin was incompetent of holding a law enforcement position. He was separated and then rehired only to be convicted of smuggling drugs to into a jail. Nobody is proud of that. The Sheriff is now cleaning house? It really should start during background, in the 21 weeks of the academy and during probation with the T.O.’s . L.A.P.D. seems to do a good job of eliminating problems very quickly. We have a few of L.A.P.D discharges who have applied with L.A.S.D. and are in background right now! It is a bit disturbing that if you look at academy classes that started graduating in Dec. 2011 and in session now we have hired individuals rejected by L.A.P.D. and other agencies. Some hired were civilian employees (c.a.’s, s.o.’s) of the department or related to members. A few of our civilian employees even had troubling behavior problems documented by supervisors, but were still admitted into the academy. Let hope we we get serious about vetting applicant’s carefully, unless the Sheriff might as well get a housekeeping staff, because he will be continuously cleaning house.

I had heard rumors about the Bravo hiring for a long time hiring, now the L.A. Times has brought out the story. 17 and 18 this is part of the problem with our hiring. It’s scary to think we are taking some of L.A.P.D. ‘s rejected candidates after the Dorner incident.

J. London, sorry, I never knew what a fox hole was. I was a load master. My math degree put me there. I loaded more ordinance than you could imagine, and yes, we never saw where it went. So you see, the term collateral damage is just that. Like I said before, it is the reality of life, good or bad. Just like the shooting, I wasn’t there, won’t comment on the mindset, but it is an unfortunate situation.

I would rather have a cop err on deadly force than hesitate and be dead. It’s the reality of the job. If you have worked in such an environment, you won’t argue that point. But then again, you probably will

Sheriff Baca,
Thank you for your service. Unfortunately your integrity and honesty has been compromised to the point that you should be running a small city in Southeast Los Angeles. Now that your true colors have surfaced, it’s time for you to retire from office. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. .It is a shame you allowed misconduct to flourish under your watch. Thanks for disappointing so many that supported you. Thanks for making sure that an individual such as your nephew and others reject from other agencies and questionable backgrounds are law enforcement officers. Can we really take your spokesman Whitmore seriously about cleaning house? What a joke.

It’s ashame what the Sheriff and Undersheriff have done to this department. Thank you to all of you that have the integrity not to follow the example set by these two.it’s funny haw people say this site is a bunch of bitter employees, but most of what is said turns out to be true.

You have deputies forming gangs that get tattoos to display how proud they are of shooting people, the sheriff not knowing that the department is hiring his nephew and others with not so stellar credentials, and now information that his undersheriff engaged in some silly game of cloak and dagger. Whitmore’s ridiculous explanation that, ”because they were under the mistaken impression that county rules prevented them from dealing directly with foreign nations.” It was okay to deal with them to send over used patrol cars…. So you sneak over to Gardena to complete the vest transaction. If this was above board why wasn’t it given to the International Liaison Unit? Wouldn’t they deal with problems or paperwork? Something smells bad here.

LASO is a sinking ship. I doubt many of you can make it, but for the few that can, call 485-LAPD. You will never see yourself embarrassed on WLA again. Join a professional organization that handles its problems on its own within the organization.

Are you people paranoid or what? All deals on the up and up use a middleman. And when questioned about the deals that are on the up and up the middleman always replies with “I’m just the middleman … I’m not the big cat. I’m not the sheriff.”
Of course the sheriff knows nothing about this. But now he’ll know. Now he can conduct his own investigation. Don’t worry he’ll get to the bottom of it.
He’ll hold a press conference to tell us how no wrongdoing was found, but he’s instituting a policy against just such behavior.
The sheriff is a guy that likes to move forward.
You would too if you left nothing but a trail of slime behind you.

I just listened to the podcast with Warren Olney, Celeste and Robert Faturechi from the LA Times (if you have not listened to it, do so on the link Celeste provided in this article) and I am absolutely dumfounded. Whitmore’s comments are so laughable, I now know why people are calling him “Baghdad Bob” Whitmore. His explanation of the Undersheriff’s reason for getting his Viking ink is so incredulous, so off the hook, you have to listen to it yourself to believe this crock. And to say the Undersheriff’s tattoo is “tiny” is a complete fabrication. I have personally seen his ink numerous times and it covers a good 1/3+ of his lower calf area. He’s the only guy I’ve seen around wearing dress shorts and long white socks.

The facts will come out after the Skelly Hearings, so we are really not in a position to comment but they better have something besides ink. I can assure you the first witness Mr. Shinee is going to call in a Civil Service hearing will be Paul Tanaka and every Viking he can get his hands on to include all of those who have been promoted to Sergeant and above, and believe me, there are many of them. Then he can move on to the Regulators, Grim Reapers and on and on and on. I will reserve final comments on the veracity of these cases based on the facts when they come out, but this is just too much.

“Cleaning House,” eh Mr. Whitmore? The scandals just never end and the Sheriff is going to “clean house?” Wow, today’s LA Times about vests and radio cars to Cambodia tells me the Sheriff only has to go around the corner from his office to start with some deep cleaning, but that will never happen, that dirt will just continue to be swept under the lumpy executive carpet that just gets bigger and bigger each week. Let’s see what comes out of the Skelly Hearings with the Chief.

#37: I think you’ll (not) be surprised to know that while training is generally documented for the boot reserves who work patrol, it’s not documented (because it probably didn’t occur) for the fancy pants reserves who hob-knob with the brass and apparently do business on the department’s behalf. Funny how Chong laid the sheriff out in the LA Times. So much for loyalty! He says he’s just a middle man, and the sheriff is the fat cat–nevermind his status as a “Reserve Commander” and his being head of the “International Liaison Unit” (whatever that is), and his having probably brokered the deal in the first place (likely to his, at the time, reputational if not financial benefit). I’d love to see a report of reserve ranks relative to their hours worked and arrests made on one cut and net worth/contributions/community ‘status’ on another. But I think we all know what that would look like.

Mr. Really. the sheriff has acknowledged there was a problem in the jails. Are you suggesting Olmstead should have remained moot? Are you suggesting that Olmstead should have remained “loyal” to the sheriff even though he knew there was a problem? Wouldn’t that be in violation of the sheriff’s precious Core Value “Do right and fight wrong”????

Hey dude, Olmstead tried more than once, in vain I might add, to bring the problem to the attn. of the sheriff so it could be dealt with. The sheriff either didn’t believe Olmstead, had more important things he was worried about or simply didn’t care. So, Olmstead did what he had to do to adhere to Sheriff Baca’s Core Values.
When are you going to admit to yourself that the sheriff F’d up royally by kissing off Olmstead and the problem?
We both know that’s why this thing got out of hand. You might not like it, but you know it’s the truth.

So, to be redundant, are you suggesting Olmstead should have remained quiet about violations of policy and possibly the law?

It would show intellectual honesty and character on your part to anser that question before you make any more desparaging comments about anybody being disloyal.

**VIVA OLMSTEAD!!** A TRUE HERO!! He is one of the reasons why this department is finally getting cleaned up!
Do you know how many Deputies would love to come out and speak the truth of what really is and has happened within the LASD? The majority of them would! the ones with their Integrity left!
the ones not speaking are the ones who were involved in that “Pay to Play” game that’s who ! and where did that get you?
I love how Dirty Tanaka stays out of the limelight while he has you guys doing all his dirty work! while he just sits back getting his toes sucked buy those of you kissing his a$$ !

Leave a Comment

Name:

Mail (will not be published):

Website:

Comment:

Please note: Comment moderation is enabled and may delay your comment. There is no need to resubmit your comment.